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Argentine first lady seen winning vote with 48 pct
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine first lady Sen. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is seen winning the October 28 presidential election by a wide margin, taking almost 48 percent of the vote, a poll showed on Friday.
According to the survey, center-left former lawmaker Elisa Carrio is in second place but trails Fernandez by more than 30 percentage points, drawing just 16 percent of the vote.
Another center-leftist, former Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna, enjoys support of about 11 percent, the poll by Hugo Haime y Asociados showed.
Fernandez is expected to continue the policies of her husband, popular President Nestor Kirchner, who has governed during four years of robust economic expansion. Kirchner has increased state pensions and promoted the revival of human rights trials dating from the 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
Fernandez, who will be the country's first elected woman leader if she wins, has said she will focus on strengthening the country's democratic institutions, such as the courts, Congress and regulatory agencies.
She also talks of forging a social pact with businesses, which analysts say could be her tool to keep inflation under control by having companies agree to limit their profits in exchange for unions agreeing to limit wage demands.
Inflation has become a central issue during the presidential campaign. Official government figures say annual inflation is running at around 8.5 percent, but many private economists' estimates are double that.
For an Argentine presidential candidate to win in the first round of elections, he or she must take more than 45 percent of votes or more than 40 percent with a lead of at least 10 percentage points over the nearest rival.
The poll was based on 2,500 face-to-face interviews with adults nationwide between October 11 and October 16. The pollster said the margin of error was 2 percent. Many pollsters in Latin America express the margin of error in percentages, a measurement that is different from the margin of error expressed in percentage points.
(For more on Argentina's October presidential election, click on www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/argentina)
